Yes, I know that becoming a mommy means so many things to so many people. Over the past few days I have been reading many different blogs, and of course my Facebook news. Finding out about people having babies, people loosing babies, people adopting babies and how people have dreams of how all of this should happen.
I read on a blog from someone yesterday that they lost a set of triplets at different stages of their pregnancy after trying many different things to conceive and then they were able to adopt! I also read on my sisters blog, this morning about her ideas of motherhood and how natural she always thought that it would all come, and how un-natural it all really is. Then I saw that a girl I was friends with in school, just had a baby yesterday. My neighbor found out earlier this wk, that her baby #5 is a boy (she is 28), the other 4 are girls!
When I was young, I suppose that I probably eventually wanted A child, many children… absolutely NOT. When Sean and I got married I said that we should wait at least 5 years. You see, my parents got married and pretty much decided right away to get pregnant, and 15 years later they were divorced. My mom has many times explained why she got pregnant so early with me… here is her very short and not so sweet answer…. We got married quickly, between him and your grandmother (dad’s mom) they kept nagging at me to have babies, I wanted to wait but they kept pushing, so we got pregnant. I really did not want to have you until my 21st birthday was past, I went to the dr and they told me they would see me in the next couple of days to have you. I told them that this was not going to happen that I was waiting till after my birthday ( my comment is always.. yeah right) She says that she went into labor with me and had me on the 9th of October she said she fought it all the way, because she was not ready to have me, her birthday is not till 17 October.
I have always felt like that she got pregnant pretty much against her own will, under pressure. She has pretty much made me feel like I really was not wanted. Not that I was never wanted at all, just not at that point in her life, not under those circumstances. She did not make me feel like that until after my parents divorced. And why I continue to ask her about her decisions back then, is stupid, I guess I am secretly hoping that her story will change. And… it doesn’t, not even in the slightest.
I think that had my mom’s story to me been different maybe I wouldn’t have put a time line on my own family. When Sean and I got married I said that I wanted to wait 5 years to start having children. We had a really hard 5 years, so at the end of the period I said that we needed to wait another 5 years. Honestly to say that I wanted to have children even in those first years… not so sure. It’s not that I didn’t want to have children, I just didn’t really care either way.. I just knew that my marriage was not where I thought it should be. Sean and I were a family, even without children, and we had some major issues that needed to be worked out.
We decided at about 9 1/2 years of marriage that we could if it happened. I went off the pill and the dr. told me not to get pregnant for at least 6 months or I would probably miscarry. Sean had returned from a deployment in November, I immediately went off the pill then we found out that he had to deploy again in April? So we said whatever happens, happens, I was pregnant in March. Of course we did not tell our families until the day before Sean left for his deployment and we only told 1 of our friends, and that was because she worked with me, and we were the only 2 workers in the office (she found out she was prego right at the same time as me) Otherwise we did not tell any of our friends, until he returned home from that deployment, we told everyone in mid Sept that we were due at Christmas. My pregnancies are so easy.. I don’t get sick, I am not tired, actually other than not having a period every month and getting a round belly at the end.. .there is nothing else that would tell you I am pregnant. Untill.. November when my water broke…
I pushed for 9 1/2 hours with no drugs, to be taken into an emergency c-section, at 34 wks and 5 days. We had our little man Jaden, in the NICU for the next 21 days. This did play a tole on me, this was my first child and they did not let me see him for the first 11 hours. Then I could not hold him for 3 days. I left the hospital without baby in arm on the 5th day when the insurance would not pay anymore, Thanksgiving day. I had Sean drop me off at my work that Monday, so that I would have something to keep me busy for a few hours while he went to work, to check in. By this time there were 4 of us working. One of the co-workers was not nice. She hurt me so bad. Of course the only photos that I had of Jaden were with feeding tubes and IV’s. She told me that, this was nasty, and that I shouldn’t have pictures like this to show people (it was the only way, that I had seen my child, how else would I show him? Should I not be happy that he is alive and healthy?) then she told me that I should not be at work, that I should be at home or with the baby. Something else that got me going… I was still not really allowed to hold him, we were only allowed to take him out for 5 minutes at a time, and only at feeding time. None of my other friends have ever had NICU babies, so I had no-one to tell me, or fill me in on anything, I was truly alone when it came to all of this… and I was 30! I was not at work because I really wanted to work, I was at work so that my mind would be on a positive note and I would have something to do rather than sit at my house ( I was not allowed to drive).
Of course Jaden is fine and you would never know that he was a premie baby. A few years later we found out our 1st month here in Vegas that we were going to have Shyla. Again, nothing to talk about with that pregnancy, just no period! Then comes (June) 34 wks 4 days, very small contractions, at 11:30 only 1 1/2 dilated and at 1:02 having 3min 40 sec contractions with 45 seconds in between went into the doors of the other hospital now dilated to 10, when I told them I had to push they said you are not there yet… I pushed my water broke and at 1:45 we had Shyla with no drugs again. That was quick, not pleasant but quick. Shyla was a bigger baby for her gestation at 6lbs 3 oz. They immediately took her to the NICU, and 5 hours later after feeding her a bottle, they brought her to my room. I had her the first day in my room with me, and the next morning they came in and said that when her levels came back that they would release us to go home. Next thing I know they tell me that they are going to have to admit her to the NICU for jaundice. The dr. said it would only be a day or so under the lights and that she could come home before the wkend. Well I told him to discharge me, I know how all the NICU works and there was no reason for me to stay since she sill be under the lights I will not be able to hold her. So I went home. Shyla was in the NICU for a total of 10 days… so much for a day or so… you see being under those lights makes them tired so their feeding goes slower. And when her jaundice was gone her feeding was slow, so they would not let her come home because of that (but she was still gaining weight).
We found out in January that Sean was going to be deploying in April, and at the same time we got a note on our door, saying the rental we were in was in foreclosure and that we had 24 hours to vacate. We fought it of course and they gave us 2 wks. We moved in a bedroom of our friends until April, when Sean was deploying and me and the two kids went to Ohio to stay. I got to Ohio on the 27th, pregnancy test on 28th positive, Sean left for Iraq on 29th. You see Sean told me that we were done having kids, unless I could get pregnant before his deployment. You can do the math… I found out I was pregnant when Shyla was 10 months old, and I was nursing.
I left Ohio to make the drive to Vegas towards the end of Oct. Dr. told me I was high risk because of the previous 2 pre-term pregnancies and that I would not be able to leave the area if I waited any longer. So I packed up and left! In a rental for 1 wk, when Sean returned home at start of November. Baby not due till 1-1-10. Day after Sean got home, we got a knock on the door saying that the home is bank owned and that we shouldn’t be in it, we would need to move. My blood pressure was extremely high. I was bed ridden and hooked up to all kinds of meds when Sean was supposed to be done with his 2 wk R&R with the return of his deployment and he could not go back to work because someone had to care for the other 2. They admitted me on Monday and took the baby on Thursday with emergency c-sect again. They said that I was killing her off and that I would either stroke or cease out at any moment. I was on lots of different blood pressure meds, and ceasing meds, and blood pressure was still 217 over 118. They immediately again (33wks 5 days) took Schyler to the NICU, she was only 3lbs 10 oz. She ate immediately, and had no issues with anything.. she was just really small. Of course there were all the wires hooked up to her, but no tubes! I however did not get to see her until later when she was 15 hours old. And the nurses never came to tell me how she was doing…. I had no clue, that she was perfectly fine!
I think that I want another baby. Yes, I am often overwhelmed with having a 2yr old and a 1 yr old, along with the 6 yr old. I do love being a Mom… I am surely not near winning any awards for mom of the year. I am trialed, and tribulated, and I fail… I think about having a baby, and I want to know what it is like to touch a newborn that belongs to me. I want to know what the smell of my.. baby is like. I have been at the delivery of 2 of my friends babies, and got to see and touch them when they were moments old. Can you believe that I cried when my friend, Holly’s baby was born.. when I touched him… he melted my heart. I can feel it all right now, as I am thinking about it. Not that I don’t feel this way about my own children, because I remember my first time touching and smelling them too. I guess it is maybe what you would call the more insecure side of me… I bet.. 100 or more people touched Jaden before I got to hold him for the first time, I know that it was probably more than that holding him before I was able to feed him the first time.
I was not the first one to feed any of my children.. I was not the first one to touch or hold any of my children…. I guess the reality of it all… is no mother, no matter if you are the biological mother or not.. no mother ever will have their complete idea of how easy motherhood is….We can imagine all day long, about how we would like to easily get pregnant, keep our home, raise our children, prepare home cooked meals, be the mom of the year…. we will never have it all, be provided it all. However we are all… grateful for it all.
I am very fortunate that God has blessed me with being alive with my 3 beautiful children, who are very healthy. None of them were the welcomed into this world as I would have dreamed. This is however how God planned it, I may ask God for it to be different from the last each time.. what I really asked is to make it closer to my due dates… Did God answer my prayers? Yes, he did he just answered it in his way… I never looked at it this way before.. maybe I was closer to my due date than what I was going to be, when I did have each of them?
For some people I am sure that they pray for a baby, and God provides a way…no matter if it is through fertility, adoption, natural birth… however.. all of us no matter what way we got our babies.. they are…ours. We can dream of the way we would like for it to be.. dinner on the table, natural birth, perfect family, house filled with family and friends…it’s ok to dream.. but when we come back to the reality of it all… we are human and we are all perfect… if only for a moment….and our dreams all do and did come true, maybe not on a full-time scale… but in little moments, we are all at some time that perfect parent!
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